The following images were taken with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1. Unless otherwise stated, the
GH1 was set to Program mode with Large Fine JPEG quality, Auto White Balance, Multiple Metering, and the Standard Film Mode (the default setting for contrast, saturation and sharpening). Image Stabilisation was enabled for all these handheld images.

The crops are taken from the original files, reproduced at 100% and saved in
Adobe Photoshop CS4 as JPEGs with the Very High quality preset, while
the resized images were made in Photoshop CS4 and saved with the default High
quality preset.

The three crops are typically taken from far left, central and
far right portions of each image.

This first shot was taken with the Lumix GH1 and its 14-140mm kit lens under bright light at its lowest 100 ISO sensitivity and therefore represents ideal conditions.

The crops contain plenty of detail and as you'd hope, are bereft of noise. The metering has underexposed a little here though, perhaps fooled by the white hull dominating the frame, although you’ll see more under-exposures later. While coloured fringing is absent in the image – we believe due to in-camera processing – it does become softer towards the edges.

The steamship Earnslaw was in dock at the time of testing, but we stood back and zoomed-in the lens into an equivalent of 82mm for a short-telephoto image.

The boost in sensitivity to 200 ISO hasn’t had a detrimental effect on noise levels, with the crops remaining clean and detailed. Once again, there’s an almost eerie absence of coloured fringing thanks to in-camera reduction, but while the image isn’t soft, it’s also lacking the bite of many consumer rivals.

For this portrait we zoomed the 14-140mm kit lens to around halfway through its range and selected the smallest f-number in Aperture Priority. The GH1 was left at 200 ISO and face detection set for the AF mode.

Face Detection easily locked-onto the subject here, and again the increase to 200 ISO hasn't had any detrimental impact on the quality.

At an equivalent of 156mm with the maximum aperture, we’ve managed to blur the background, and if desired, a smaller depth-of-field can be achieved by standing back and zooming-further.

Our second indoor was taken with the GH1 increased to 800 ISO. Even then, relatively dim conditions resulted in a shutter speed of 1/8, but this was well within the capabilities of the OIS stabilisation.

The GH1 has again under-exposed this shot, which would normally make noise levels more visible, but to its credit, the crops remain fairly clean and detailed.